


flip of the cards

by Ember626



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Canonical Character Death, Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memory Loss, Reminiscing, Tarot, it might get a little sad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:47:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember626/pseuds/Ember626
Summary: Molly made a tarot card for each of them. He didn’t mean to, initially, they were too sharp, too brittle and cracked to be the perfect embodiment of the cards. But then he saw Nott snatching items left and right, Jester grinning mischievously, and his dear friend Yasha’s stoic strength and really, how could he not when faced with such inspiration?
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Mollymauk Tealeaf
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I watched episode 117 and when Jester mentioned Molly painted a card for each of them, I got the itch to write slightly sad reminiscing scenes about them. I’ll probably make this a series, so keep an eye out for more :) thanks for reading!

Molly made a card for each of them. Painted over long hours on watch, red eyes darting up and around, then back down to the cards and paint. He wasn’t the greatest artist, he knew that, and Jester’s failed attempts at helpful commentary weren’t the most motivating. Though he liked the way she tried not to wrinkle her nose  _ too _ much when she caught a glimpse of a crooked line or colors that didn’t  _ quite match Molly, maybe you could—? _

His work wasn’t perfect; even darkvision couldn’t help the fact that these were painted by starlight. Molly thought that gave them charm, though. The Moonweaver’s eyes watching over him or something. 

He didn’t mean to specifically make the cards based off of each member of their little ragtag group. They were a bit too frayed at the edges, a bit too brittle and cracked to be perfect embodiments of the tarot cards. There weren’t enough of them to make a full deck anyways.

But then he saw Nott snatching items left and right, Jester grinning mischievously, and his dear friend Yasha’s stoic strength and really, how could he not when faced with such inspiration?

He painted the Magician card by firelight, watching Caleb watching the group. Scruffy beard slightly singed, nimble fingers curled around his cup, smiling faintly at Jester’s antics or when Fjord’s accent went slightly off of whatever it was supposed to be. A white border, bisected by the occasional stray brushstroke and spirals upon spirals of fire. With his paint balanced precariously on his knee and his singular brush made of his lavender hair glued to a stick, Molly didn’t feel like much of an artist or charlatan. 

But then a cut of color would edge over another just so, or an unintentional waver in his wrist would cause a brushstroke to come out better than expected, and a small warmth would spark—  _ the irony of that thought, Molly snorted— _ and maybe made the sore shoulder from hunching over the card worth it. Sometimes after that unintentional wrist-waver he’d shoot his eyes upwards and just barely catch the violet glint of Jester’s eyes and a whisper of fabric behind her.

According to the carnie Molly learned tarot from, the Magician card could mean so many things—

_ “—ah yeah, if I’m bein’ honest you could spin that Magician’s card into anything you want, folks who attract it are complicated enough they’ll take anything—“ _

—that Molly threw all that out. Here’s what the card meant to  _ Mollymauk Tealeaf _ . 

To Molly, it meant quiet thoughtfulness and a bitter silence. It meant being so self sacrificial that it made his lips purse. It meant incredible skill, accompanied with astounding intelligence. It was a card of limitless potential, juxtaposed with the sharp taste of doubt.

He used his brightest reds and icy blues—  _ it needs to be accurate Jester, that’s why I’m staring, stop lookin’ over my shoulder— _ and after seeing the glow of Caleb’s face in his dancing lights spell, he added bright white and yellow glowing orbs framed around the figure on the card. 

It meant knobby joints and knuckles cracking with movement in the heat of battle, followed by a searing blast of fire. 

The Magician card wasn’t the first card he painted, but it definitely brings a little twitch to the corner of his mouth when he draws it in a reading. He was sure Caleb would appreciate the irony of his tattered and mud splattered coat being immortalized on a tarot card to be shown to countless people.


	2. Fjord

Fjord is always accompanied by the smell of the sea. Not cool breezes and warm sand, but cold briny depths and sprawling seaweed. Might’ve been from all the seawater he coughed up on a daily basis, but it was still unnerving in Molly’s opinion. While he wasn’t human, he was fairly certain that salt water was not conducive to normal breathing patterns. 

The back of his neck was permanently tanned, Molly noticed. While the backs of theirs burned and smarted in the sun while riding the cart, Fjord just shrugged it off with a twang of his fake accent. His forearms were as well. Molly had never been on a boat, or at least he didn’t think he had. Or he didn’t remember. In any case, in Molly’s not very expert opinion, Fjord looked like he belonged to the sea. 

Not in the sense that his laugh braced over them like a wave, or his sea green skin reminded Jester so strongly of  _ home _ that Molly saw her staring sometimes, like if she did it long enough she’d be somewhere else— more like he  _ belonged, was possessed, owned  _ by the sea. Kind of felt like Fjord was on loan to them, but as long as he was ignoring it and what seemed to be a looming side-quest, Molly was happy to do so as well. 

Fjord’s card started as a Cart Sketch, a category he made up to justify his wobbly lines and scrawled designs to Jester when she asked. 

_ “Yes it does matter that it’s a “Cart Sketch,” Yasha, I wouldn’t want my artistry to be shamed for a few wobbly lines in the first draft, would I?” _

Fjord gave off a restless feeling, a feeling of needing to be somewhere else doing something else. Like he already had found a clue but didn’t know yet.

The Eye and the Hand, he called it. It was layer upon layer of greens and yellows to form a tumultuous sea, dark and definitely a little menacing looking. Jester said it gave her the shivers to even look at it—  _ it’s creepy Molly— _ her accent rolling the “o” around before spitting the name out—  _ but like, in a good way, y’now? _

A figure in the foreground holds up a yellow slitted eye, oily and  _ searching _ . It marks a point in Molly’s card painting where he actually feels proud of what he’s made; he flashes it with exuberant hand gestures when using the deck, relishes in the wide eyes that stare at the card. And if he avoids eye contact with the very similar yellow eye embedded in Fjord’s unnatural sword, well, no one calls him out on it.

“Molly,” Fjord says slowly.

Molly hums in acknowledgment, eyes still trained on the countryside around them.

“You know I don’t put much faith in divinity, or  _ fate _ er’ whatever, but… while we’re sittin’ here I thought I’d ask—“

Molly stops Fjords rambling by grinning sharply for a second and fanning his card deck he had been tracing the edges of in his pocket. “Oh of course! Settle in, pay attention, Mollymauk Tealeaf is going to read your future!” He ends his usual opening statement by wiggling his eyebrows for good measure. Fjord does not look any less apprehensive.

With one last glance around the area (it had been pretty quiet, surely ten minutes wouldn’t hurt) Molly places the first card of the spread down, the one that represents the past. It’s an unfinished card, a version of the Tower. 

“Ah yes, the Tower. You’ve gone through big change, and been through destruction.” Fjord bites at the fingernail on his thumb.

Molly flips over the second card of the spread, the present. Unsurprisingly, it’s the Eye and the Hand that Molly had just finished earlier in the evening. He glances up at the moon suspiciously. He hadn’t necessarily been hiding it from Fjord, but he was pretty sure the half-orc didn’t know he had been painting him.

When the aforementioned half-orc sees the painting on the card, he sucks in a breath. 

“Is that— is that  _ me? _ ” He looks a little scared.

“It means that you’ve found something, or know something but you just don’t know yet. Not technically bad—“ he adds when he sees Fjord start to frown, “— just that you should be on the lookout.”

He continues with his cards when he sees Fjord give a faint nod. His yellow eyes gleam for a moment, and Molly shivers.

“And for the future, oh! See, the Anvil. You’ve got a bright adventurous future, so it’s not all doom and gloom.”

Fjord’s eyebrows just raise and he looks up at Molly.

“To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was expectin’ from that.” His words hang oddly on the end of his sentence, as if even Fjord wasn’t sure what he was supposed to sound like. 

Molly just ignores it, because hey, it’s been working so far and Fjord will deal with it when he wants to and says, “You can put as much credence in it as you want, but I tend to think about them like an overview of what  _ might _ have been or could be. Less pressure.”

Fjord shifts his weight on his log next to Molly and the squeal of old wood makes Molly jump a bit. The trees ahead are dark and still.

“Yeah. Less pressure,” he agrees. Molly dazzles his eyes by staring at the moon again. Fjord can take the rest of the watch, Molly just kind of wants to stare for a while.


End file.
